DOES IT ACTUALLY WORK?

Clean sleeping for good kip

Ioften dream about what it might be like to get a good night’s sleep – for my mind to stop revisiting those texts from my ex and for DOMS to finally fade when I crawl into bed. I’m talking daydreams of course; I’d have to actually nod off to experience bona fide dreams. Now, I’m all over clean eating and healthy living in general, but I’ve been reluctant to jump on the clean sleeping bandwagon, even though my dodgy snooze patterns leave me running on empty. I’d always discounted it as a passing fad, rather than a real, science-backed, life-enhancing remedy. For the uninitiated, clean sleeping is supposed to restore good sleeping patterns by banishing all your bad habits. It’s said to set your body on a natural path to a good night’s rest. So, what does it involve? Before I even set foot inside The London Sleep Centre, I was sent a 15-page questionnaire and, while I’d expected questions about how I slept (or didn’t), I was less prepared for the forensic examination of my mental health. ‘Anxiety and depression are very common causes of insomnia,’ explains Professor Adrian Williams from the centre. ‘Around half of sufferers will have a clinical problem with anxiety or depression.’ Questionnaire done, I then underwent a physical with a doctor and had a session with a therapist, where I had to identify the date my sleep patterns started to deteriorate and try to find a possible trigger (I’ve got nothing). The steps I was prescribed were extensive and slightly daunting. Getting up at 6am every day (yes, that’s weekends, too), a tech embargo an hour before bed and a caffeine ban after 12pm. ‘If you have a coffee at 10am, you’ll still have 20mg of caffeine in your system when you go to bed,’ says Professor Williams. ‘That can be very disruptive.’ But what was I supposed to do for that last hour without my phone and with no Netflix? First, I was to find a cosy corner to sit and jot down in a hardcover book five issues that were worrying me. For each negative, I had to find a positive aspect, then slam the book shut as if closing my brain to them. When I woke in the night, I had to recall the thud of the book shutting rather than mulling over my problems. Next, I was to use a meditative breathing exercise taught in the therapy session – inhale for three seconds, exhale for three seconds. For the rest of the hour, I’d read a book. My bedtime also changed – from 10:15pm to 11pm – to practise ‘sleep restriction’. Sounds counter-intuitive, but going to bed later helps by building an internal pressure to sleep. Three days in and I was noticing an improvement in my quality of sleep. After a week, I was a convert. Scrapping screen time, plus the reading and breathing exercises, really helped improve my sleep. I stopped waking up throughout the night and started my days feeling properly rested. After a week of following the rules rigidly, I adapted the plan to better suit my needs. At points, I felt like I was trying too hard to sleep well, which seemed counter-productive. ‘You have to go down to the bare bones, initially,’ says Professor Williams. ‘Then you can reintroduce stressors one by one, so you know what negatively affects you.’ So, I may no longer be listing five worries, but I’m still curling up with a good book before lights out.